Sentiment Analysis from Facebook Comments using Automatic Coding in NVivo 11

Abstract

The number and size of social networks have grown significantly as years have passed. With its 1.5 billion active users, Facebook is by far the most popular social networks on the planet. From kindergarten kids to grandparents to teenagers, Facebook attracts users of all ages, religions, personalities and social status. Facebook users are sharing their personal information, their lifestyle, their precious moments and their feelings online. In this paper, we download a set of comments from the page ‘Opposing Views’ from Facebook. These were then categorised into either a positive comment or a negative comment using the auto code feature in NVivo 11. Comments where no positive or negative sentiments are found are considered to be neutral. Out of 626 comments, 29.6% were found to contain positive sentiments while 62.0% were found to contain negative sentiments. The outcome of this work can be used by businesses to assess public reviews about their products. This will help them understand what is working and what is not. Thus, they can improve their products and respond to customer demands sufficiently quickly.